tute of employment. If there was al Mr. James Grattan objected to the hope that all the present distress would motion, as calculated to lead the people be removed, and the cloud which, at pre- of Great Britain, and especially those of sent, hung over their prospects would Ireland, astray. Emigration was the clear away if it was possible to find any hobby, if he might so call it, of the hon. other method of permanently employing gentleman opposite; but it had been their families, and leaving the supply proved by experience, that emigration, equal to the demand-then God forbid upon any extended scale, would not do; that he should be the first to recommend and, in the mean time, hopes were excited emigration from this country to any among the distressed people. They other! But if the question rested upon the imagined that a plan was in preparation point of whether the distress was temporary for their removal, and that money was or permanent, he feared there was very little going to be granted for their aid; while chance of any permanent relief by employ- the hon. gentleman went on, from session ment, so as to place those who were now to session, appointing his committee, dissuffering beyond the reach of distress. It cussing projects which the country had would be unnecessary for him to say that no means of realizing, and describing the introduction of machinery must, under scenes of comfort and amelioration which, every circumstance, be considered a most by no probability could come to pass. desirable object. One thing was certain, By the calculation of colonel Cockburn, that the productions by the means of ma- the military experiment made in 1816 had chinery had become great enough to pre-cost the country, for each settler, at the vent any fear of a rise in the price of any commodity by the withdrawing of workmen through the means of emigration. rate of 201. per man. He repeated, that the expense of such a proceeding made it impossible for the country to execute it to The hon. member then went into an any considerable extent. We were called explanation of the details, as shown from upon to lay out enormous sums for the the labours of the last committee, and purpose of sending our population abroad. stated the maximum cost of the transport Would it not be better, in the first inof every individual to Canada to be about stance, to try the cheaper experiment, of 201. Many of them, indeed all, had making them comfortable at home? And, there been fortunate; and there was the even with all this expense, the system of best ground for believing, that the con- emigration was radically bad. If it redition of repaying the advances made to lieved us of our number for the present, them by government could not, under the vacuum so produced would be very any circumstances, be considered a hard- soon again supplied. With respect to ship. He was well aware that the subject Ireland, what had been the opinion of of emigration, as connected with the persons well calculated to judge, as to the manufacturing districts, required much effect of emigration? Let the hon. genfurther examination, and he did not pre- tleman, who was so anxious to move the tend to deny that it might not lead to a labouring population out of Ireland, comconsideration of the whole state of the pel their landlords to do something which Poor-laws. This only he would venture should find them present food and employto declare, that unless they fairly met the ment. What was the evidence of Mr. evil, and applied some real and substan- Nimmo before the committee? tive remedy, the demands under those Nimmo was a Scotchman, and not likely laws would soon absorb the whole rental to exaggerate what he had seen from any and capital of the country. To that sub-national and party feeling. His evidence ject the committee would apply themselves, and if they could suggest any other or better expedient than emigration, he would most gladly embrace it; although he had no hesitation in saying, after the most mature consideration, that it was his deliberate conviction that no better remedy could be found. He would now move, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the subject of Emigration from the United Kingdom." Mr. went to show, that riot and ill government, rather than a surplus population, were the evils that afflicted Ireland: for he said, "In places like Derry, where the country was quiet, I found the land letting for 57. an acre; and yet the people well off, and satisfied; but, in Kerry, where the land was let at only 17. an acre, the country was in a state of tumult, and all was miserable, and going wrong." He wished Irish gentlemen would look to Ireland in the discussion of this question. The bishop of Limerick had said in his evidence, why do you not employ the redundant population at home, in the fisheries, in the making of roads, and not send them abroad? He did not think that many Irishmen would now colonize with any but irritated feelings; and the probability was, that they would be among our bitterest and most implacable enemies. He trusted that the House would not suffer a new committee to be appointed. For his own part, he would rather vote a sum of money for the relief of these distressed persons at home; and he thought that, if there was to be a tax for the purposes of relief, it had better be spent at home than in furnishing the means of emigration to other countries. He would therefore move as an amendment, "That the state of distress existing in this country at present, and the still greater distress which has existed for so many years in Ireland, requires some more immediate and permanent remedy than any which may be expected to result from the re-appointment of a Committee on Emigration." Mr. Lombe rose to second the amendment. He said, that if the hon. gentleman opposite would come down to that House with a fair and honest scheme of colonization, he should have his cordial support; but this was a mere delusion. As to Ireland, there was but one course to be pursued Catholic emancipation must be granted. It was said that the present distresses of that country were owing to want of employment, and that there was no capital to furnish that employment. But why was there no capital? Because of the disturbances which existed there; and which would prevent any capitalist in his senses from risking his property in that country. Remove the disabilities under which the Catholics laboured, and these disturbances would no longer exist. He was sure he spoke the sentiments of every honest Irishman when he said, that if these disabilities were removed, the people of Ireland would become good and peaceful subjects; and the English capitalist might then settle there in perfect security. This would certainly be the result. He trusted that the great question of Catholic emancipation would pass that House in a few days; and if it did not, he hoped he should live to see the day when the people of Ireland would come in a body to the doors of that House, and snatch, by constitutional means, those privileges which they had so long prayed for in vain. Colonel Torrens said, that having given great consideration to the subject of emigration, and believing emigration, as a general measure, to be capable of conferring the most extensive benefits upon this empire, he naturally felt desirous to reply to some of the observations which had been that night urged, upon his side of the House, on the present question. Instead of deprecating emigration, as some hon. gentlemen had done, and in no very measured terms, he was convinced that all those who had reasoned this great question, upon sound and intelligent principles, must perceive that it was calculated to work almost unlimited advantage to Great Britain, and that for the evils of that country which had just been touched upon, it offered the only efficient remedy. The hon. member for Wexford had told the House that, for want of employment in their native country, the poor labourers of Ireland were compelled to ship themselves hither; that on arriving here, they discovered a redundancy of hands offering for agricultural labour, and were, therefore, obliged to return back to Ireland, where, of necessity, they fell into the most abject state of pauperism and want. Now, could any fact prove more strongly than this, that, if it was possible to obviate this hard necessity, these people ought not to be bandied backwards and forwards, between the two countries, like miserable shuttlecocks, abandoned to their own wretchedness? Another hon. member was of opinion, that British capitalists and British farmers should settle among them, and endeavour to give employment to the unfortunate population of that country. But that hon. gentleman ought to know, that in Ireland there was already a great redundancy of that population employed in agricultural labour; that in point of fact, twice the number of agricultural labourers which were employed in England, failed in Ireland to raise the same amount of produce. If already, therefore, double the number of agricultural hands were in work in Ireland, what would be the effect of introducing into that country the English and Scotch system of agriculture? Why, of necessity, to render one-half of the whole agricultural population of Ireland, absolutely and positively redundant, and totally unemployed. An hon. gentleman had ap- I removed, and to see that country one with plied epithets to the schemes of emigra- this, and governed by the same laws; but tion that had been, at different times, con- he must say, that he thought it a little too templated by the government, which might much for the hon. member who spoke last surely as well have been spared. The to mix up the question of Catholic emanquestion of emigration was one so wide, cipation with that of emigration; and he and to be discussed upon principles so would venture to say, that if Catholic abstruse, yet so philosophical, that it would emancipation were granted to-morrow, it not be disposed of by applying to it a few would not relieve, in the slightest degree, epithets of such a character; and, still the distresses of Ireland, He would add less, in so far as it regarded Ireland. one word about the expense of carrying It was not the want of capital that caused this projected emigration into effect. the distresses of Ireland; it was the fact Great stress had been laid upon this; and of her territory being too small to support some hon. gentlemen appeared to think, her population: and thus it was that the that the greatness of the expense would be redundancy of population met them at the fatal to the project. He, however, was of very threshold of the argument, and was opinion, that the expense of sending out a the evil to which a remedy must be first million of people to Canada would be well applied. This great and important ques- repaid. They would occupy twenty miltion must be tried by its own merits. In lions of acres of the best land which governIreland there was, as it was confessed on ment could give them, and if capital were all hands, a redundancy of population; supplied them, these acres would in a and the hon. gentleman under the gallery few years be worth a pound an acre; had proposed to remedy this evil by in- and could they not then afford to pay a creasing the capital of that country. Now, shilling a year rent? Any body accushe would inform that hon. gentleman, that tomed to consider the value of land, and the where there were not fertile lands on which growth of rent, would entertain no doubt capital could be applied, it might happen, that to Canada this calculation, at the that in one and the same country both lowest, would apply. And, as to that noble capital and labour might be redundant. country, people at home really looked at He need not remind any hon. gentleman the question in a very narrow point of who was conversant with these matters, view. They looked at Canada simply as that when double capital was applied to she now was, not with any regard to what land, it would not always give a double she might be to what she must hereafter result. There was a point, at which, after attain to-in the occupation of a large repeated applications of capital to a farm, British population of settlers, going out any succeeding applications of capital there with sufficient, though probably could not be successfully made, any more frugal, means. These persons would nathan it would be successful in the result turally require a great abundance of coarse to apply large portions of capital to lands materials, but materials of light and easy of a certain degree of want of fertility. freight; and the mother country would The state of the question was this. Eng- gradually be founding a commerce, which land had a redundant capital, and a re- would one day become most extensive. dundant population; Ireland had a re- Markets for various commodities would be dundant population, and in the colonies constantly springing up in Canada, and land was redundant. Emigration, there- she would, at no distant period, become as fore, was merely the application of the flourishing, in proportion to her resources, redundant capital and population of the as the United States themselves. She united kingdom to the redundant land of would very soon evince a progress not less the colonies. This would be to increase rapid than that which the United States the national wealth, and he would contend displayed after the war of independence. that it was the only means of putting He would say again, that the measure down our poor-laws, which were a Spen- which was contemplated by the present cean system, that would, if persevered in, motion, was a great measure, pregnant break down all aristocratical distinctions, with mighty results, and founded upon the and reduce every state and condition to best and soundest principles of political the same level of poverty and misery.-economy-that it would combine those With respect to Ireland, he wished as productive elements of wealth and power, heartily as any man, to see all disabilities which, uncombined, were fruitless-that it would relieve, as he had before observed, Ireland from the oppressive redundancy of her population; and England from the alarming and destructive increase of her poor-rates; and finally, that it would spread the British name, the British laws, and British influence throughout all climes of the world. experiments amounted to a total failure, Mr. Bright considered that this was a practical question, and had been dealt with too theoretically. He had, no doubt, that emigration, on a large scale, would be of great benefit to the country; but he thought that the measures pursued by government, with respect to emigration to British America, were not those which ought to have been pursued. The hon. Secretary had, in effect, given the House to understand, that his schemes of emigration had perfectly succeeded. He had intimated, that the experiment of 1823 had had every success; but in this point he entirely disagreed with him. The hon. gentleman had talked about some strange multiplication of property in the case of one hundred and twenty persons settled in Upper Canada, whohad taken out only 207. a-piece, and were now worth in the aggregate,7,000l. But, with this estimate, let the House contrast the evidence of col. Cockburn; and, having done so, the House would be slow to believe that Mr. Robinson, the conducter of the experiment of 1825, had effected twice as much. From the statements of these gentlemen, he inferred that the results of each expedition had been disastrous. Mr. Robinson, in particular, was evidently anxious to explain away a charge that had been made against the misfortunes that attended the experiment which he conducted. It appeared that the people were landed in Canada at wrong time of the year; but, he added, they were as comfortable as could be. He admitted, that there were many local fevers and agues about; but then, he consolingly added, we brought two thousand people out; and have lost but one hundred." He allowed that they were much annoyed by the mosquitos and insects; but then they were all pretty well. Could it, then, be seriously contended, that these experiments had succeeded? If Mr. Robinson encountered such difficulties in conducting his people to their loca-tary, and from the recommendations which tion in the second experiment, what must have been encountered by colonel Cockburn in respect to the first? The hon. gentleman declared that he thought these the 66 the committee had made for the future, still he was convinced that the committee ought to go forward; because he believed that from the inquiry would spring evi ticable dence upon which the House might safely | them about Irish affairs, little had been act, and suggestions which might be prac- done in them, compared with the knowledge which parliament had acquired of them. Neither did he mention this as matter of blame; for, so aggravated was the situation of that country, that it required a very vigorous mind in the man who should take up one part of the complicated case, which that anomalous situation presented to him, not to abandon the rest of it in utter despair. From himself the hon. Secretary had the greatest praise; because, next to that great and vital question, which stood upon their books for discussion on the 1st of Marchnext to the political evil which now wasted the strength and impaired the resources of Ireland-there was no subject so deeply interesting to an Irishman as this question, touching the only measures which could effectually relieve his country from the evils arising out of her superabundant population. It seemed, however, that this was, according to the expression of one gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, though somewhat disappointed with the statements that had been that evening made by the hon. Secretary near him, felt considerably gratified that, hitherto, whatever objections had been taken to the measure recommended by that hon. gentleman, applied only to the details, and not to the principle of the measure. That principle was left entirely untouched; namely, the relief of the not merely excessive, but vastly superabundant, population of Ireland. This superabundance was general, and not confined to the mountains and waste lands only, which the hon. member for Wicklow recommended that they should be employed to cultivate instead of being conveyed to eat bread and to earn money in America. But, in the former case, where was the bread to be had, or the money to be found to support these poor people during their employment? The gravamen of this case the hobby" of the hon. Secretary; and it was was, that thousands and hundreds of said that every man had his hobby: but the thousands, nay, he might say, two-thirds report, with the accompanying evidence, was of the people of Ireland, were unemployed. a very valuable document, and well worthy The hon. member for Bristol had objected, of being read. Yet the whole of that evithat the hon. Secretary's measure was not dence and report might be dispensed with, the right one. Now, he would admit that and a very strong and pressing case would rethe details of the measure were very im- main, for takingthe condition of the superportant, and might involve the inex- abundant population of the empire into pediency of the whole measure itself, consideration.-He would now advert to and it would be very well to consider the evidence which was taken before the them, when they should have been Irish committee, of which the hon. Secrebrought before the House. But after tary was not a member. The hon. memall that had been said on this subject, it ber for Bristol had great sympathy with was a little too hard for the House to the men who went out in 1823; they, it be trying details which had not yet come seemed, were not well off enough; they under their notice. The hon. Secretary found the climate bad; they were bitten was not now calling on the House to ap- by mosquitos. But, did that hon. gentleprove or support any specific plan; nor man know what was the situation of the did he mean, as an hon. member seemed pauper population of Ireland? for that to apprehend, to kill Irish emigrants with was the point to which he now desired to salt pork, boiled beef and plum-pudding. call the attention of the House; and he All that the hon. Secretary had said, in would read two or three extracts from the effect, was "Our experiment of 1823 evidence given before the committee in succeeded to a certain degree. Give me a question. Major Wilcox examined as committee, and let us prepare a plan of to the condition of the state of the popuemigration, such as, upon all considera-lation in Limerick county, stated, what? tions, shall appear most likely to be successful." For his part, he (Mr. Brownlow) was much obliged to the hon. Secretary for having brought forward the question. In the first place, that fact alone savoured of doing something for Ireland. He could not help thinking, that, though a flood of light had lately poured in upon that they were living in good log houses? with so many acres of land around them, and every day bettering their condition? No; but that hordes of these unfortunate paupers were living amidst bogs, with no other covering but sedge; and very little of that. Mr. Dunn, of Queen's county, deposed, that there was a great want of |
